Painful Past
by Yonshii
Summary: "I loved her with every inch of my heart, but she slipped away from me."


_My name is Uzumaki Naruto. Ever since the beginning of elementary school, I've liked… had a crush on… No, I've been in love with a now former classmate of mine. She was kind, smart, gorgeous, and above all…__  
The first one to remember my birthday.__  
As soon as someone would mention her name, my heart would immediately skip a beat and my I'd blush crimson red.  
I wanted to be more than a friend to her, but I was too shy to confess. If only I would've stood up for my feelings earlier… If only I wouldn't have been too scared to approach her, then maybe…just maybe…Things would be different…  
I loved her with every inch of my heart, but she slipped away from me._

* * *

**Rivals in Love**

The condensed moisture fell upon the village of Konoha on yet another Tuesday. The town was infamous for the foul weather that seemed to reside above it. This aphotic, almost Cimmerian place which had not seen real sunlight for over ten centuries was given the name "Kanashimi no Mura", Village of Sorrow mainly due to the atmospheric conditions. The citizens were cursed with pale skin, tired eyes and despairing words. They dragged their decaying bodies along the streets, on their way to some form of an undignified job.  
There was but one area in this village which was not affected by its surroundings. It seemed almost as though the rain was falling excessively at just that spot, as if trying to drown it in despair along with the rest. It was not only prestigious and honored by its country, but had also somehow become immune to the disease it situated itself in. It seemed almost like a castle, treasured and cherished by those around it. The vast variety of colors it was dressed with may be considered slightly overwhelming at first, but it was ultimately the only thing that held hope that those shades would overrule the grey that Konoha represented itself by.

Green walls, red roof, brown windows, blue doors, the only white object was the title of the school displayed across its front. The letters lit up with the help of the small lights beneath them to read: "THE PRIVATE SCHOOL OF KONOHA". Even if it was these visual attributes that caused the school to be resistant to the rain, it would still be called "The Miracle".

The school had created its own town within its five different buildings. These included the main building, the gym hall, the arts hall, and the two dormitories. Do not underestimate these five edifices.  
All the way up to the third floor in the Main building was where lessons were held. The aula were required to be at least thirty by forty meters with either green, pink, bright blue, turquoise, yellow or violet walls. All colors in the building were on the brighter scale. Lessons lasted for exactly one hour each.

On the fourth floor were the lunchrooms. Classes were divided into different rooms depending on their economy. The difference was not the quality of the food, but the diversity. For example, if a student has a "mediocre" economy, he will be placed in the second room with a range of five types of lunches. If a student has what is called "unlimited" economy, they will be taken to the fifth room, with a range of fifty lunches, including a dessert. The chairs in the first room are very different from those in the fifth. Although the furniture in the first room is already above imaginable for a "commoner", the fifth rooms' furnishing is heavenly. Only seven percent of the students attending The Private School of Konoha may enter the fifth room.

The floor above the fourth is the teacher's dormitory. There is a total of one-hundred teachers assigned all to different categories and classes. Their subjects cover Math, English, Japanese, Calligraphy, Geography, History, Economy, Philosophy, Physical Education, Home Economics, Gardening, Music, Biology, Chemistry, Physical, Arts and Royalty. Of course, there were deeper classes to each category. For example, arts had Sculpturing, Inventing, Painting and designing. It was a complicated schedule for the pupils, beginning at 08:00 a.m. and ending around 18:00 p.m.  
Attached to all the Main buildings floors was the greenhouse. At a size of 500x400 meters, it was open not only to the school, but to the public as well. The school was famous for this greenhouse, because of its ability to achieve artificial weather. The walls and roof were made of "Time Glass". As the name highlights, the glass has been exposed to the sun for an amount of centuries, carving the light into its very own image. The light passes through the glass after an amount of time and returns to its normal transparent self. The thicker the glass, the longer the image lasts. The time glass is one of the many inventions that the invention teacher, Mr. Hako (Hako = Box) has made, which is why the greenhouse is equipped with the thickest Time Glass available. It is exactly 73 cm thick and takes ten years for light to pass through.  
The one and only teacher to be in charge of caring for the greenhouse is Mr. Nasu, which would directly translated to "Mister Eggplant". Almost non-coincidental, the fifty-three year-old man carries an eggplant wherever he goes.  
The Gym hall had an inside football field with artificial sun and heat, an equestrian building with showjumping and dressage competitions, a baseball court, kendo hall, fencing hall, climbing hall, swimming hall and a gymnastics hall. There were also stables with indoor pastures, artificial light and bridle paths. Oh, and please do not forget the spa on the top floor. There are six floors in total.  
The soundproof walls and windows shone brightly and glistened almost beautifully as the rain whipped against it. A twisted sonata allowed its quaint melody to reverberate across the long hallways of the School as students dressed in female and male uniforms retreated to their homerooms. It was the beginning of a day that would turn out very…  
Extraordinary.

Let us halt this introduction. We cannot keep ranting about the school, the story must progress. It is, after all, about two individuals with very unfortunate lives.

Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hinata.

* * *

A second year boy rested his head on his hand as he uninterestingly listened to his teachers' lesson. He had grown accustomed to hearing nothing but the voice of Mrs. Maru (Maru = Round) and the sickly melody during Math. Even though he knew that the rain just outside of the window next to him was obviously in existence, it was nothing but mute to him. He sometimes wondered what it sounded like in the world outside of this school, but he had another two years left before he would find out. It was alright with him, anyway, because he had some unfinished business with certain people that he would need to get over with before he could move on. His life had been a complete in a complete mess for exactly ten years now. Maybe he should celebrate.  
Naruto opened his mouth and let out a small yawn before returning to his work. Algebra was like a language that was not possible to learn.

_'Letters and numbers in the same sentence should be illegal…'_

He thought annoyingly.  
Hearing the sound of a pen drop caught Naruto's attention almost immediately. Looking up to see who it was who made the mistake, his lips bent down into a bitter frown.

_'Uchiha Sasuke…'_

There was not a single person in the world that could compare to Naruto's hate for Sasuke. Not only did the raven-haired teenage boy steal the heart of the only girl Naruto ever loved, but he also laughed at him for it. After her mother unfortunately passed away, the girl was forced to move out of Konoha to live together with her father. Naruto had sent infinite letters with the address she gave him, but never received any response. A few letter, he gained the knowledge to understand technology and looked up the address only to find that it did not exist.

'_Love… It's just a word that fools use to flatter each other.' _

In return for taking Naruto's first and only love away from him, the blonde had taken advantage of Sasuke's crush that coincidentally happened to be interested in him. Basically, it was all the exact opposite of what it was supposed to be. Naruto was in love with a girl named Hinata, Hinata was in love with Sasuke, Sasuke was in love with Sakura, who was in love with Naruto.

What people would laugh and say "that's impossible!" to became reality for the four.

Naruto snickered and turned back to his math work, twirling his orange pen around in his tough hand, now with a smirk painted upon his lips. He had completely devastated Sasuke's life as revenge, making Sakura his girlfriend and every day making sure to give her kisses in front of him. While he was at it, he'd seduced all the other girls and befriended all the guys just to make everyone turn against Sasuke. Most would say that this action was nothing short of over exaggerated, but to Naruto, this was not even worth comparing to the pain he'd felt when Hinata both to Naruto and to the rest of the class confessed her love to Sasuke.

"Hi, is this thing on? Would you mind showing me your bra, in a good way? Class ends in ten minutes." The musician, Mr. Hen (Hen = Weird) was in charge of ringing the bell, but he almost always used the microphone instead to share his current thoughts with everyone in the school. Most of the time it was something obscure like this. He had an extremely strange fashion of saying and doing things, for instance his tenacy to add "in a good way" or "in a good way" to the end of his sentences. If he found his statement to be good, he'd end it with "in a good way", but if he found it to be negative, he'd say "in a bad way". Naruto didn't know much about him because he wasn't particularly interested in Music. When he had guitar and singing lessons, he would get the studio all to himself. It almost seemed as if the Musician had something against Naruto. It would be quite an aggravating situation for Naruto as he had almost all the teachers on his side. Almost, that leaves out the and the English teacher, Hatake Kakashi.

Naruto's celestial blue eyes rested on the rain outside the window. It was truly tragic and depressing to watch all the people suffer through their lame excuses for lives, but there was something interesting about it too. Was it really the school that made all these barely alive mortals resist committing suicide?

"Alright, take out the homework from yesterday." Naruto's attention was caught as soon as he heard the word "homework". He knew very well that Mrs. Maru would only mention homework when she was planning on wrapping up the class. Although there was still nine minutes left of class, Naruto would always count away the five last ones since Mrs. Maru always let them end early.

'_Only four minutes left…'_

As soon as everyone had handed in their homework in, the bell rang. Naruto stood from his seat, immediately looking over to his girlfriend, Sakura, while doing so. He knew a certain Sasuke was watching him already now. Just to make sure, he sent a quick glance to the back of the room where said boy would normally sit, and, as predicted, Uchiha Sasuke was staring at him. Naruto smirked, wrapped his arm swiftly around Sakura waist, and planted a gently kiss on her lips.

'_Don't forget Sasuke, you ruined my life.'  
_

* * *

It was around the middle of lunch for Naruto and the rest of the school when the speaker was turned on and a dark, deep voice spoke. It was careful to be slow in its pace and very clear, so whoever speaking would not have to repeat himself.

"Attention, Class 2B."

Narutos ears perked almost immediately upon hearing his class's name being called. It was unusual for class 2B to be mentioned, since they were so obedient and revered by all the teachers, including the principal. Because of this, the room went completely silent. Everyone anticipated what was to be said about this popular class.

"A new female student from Tokyo will be joining you at exactly 15:00 in the middle of English class. That is all."

The speaker was turned off.

A second grader by the name of Inuzuka Kiba slammed his glass into the table and was the first to speak.

"I wonder if she's hot!"

As if Kiba's words were a signal to begin talking again, everyone's conversations resumed like nothing, except for that now everyone was talking about this "new student". This may be the first transfer student that this school had ever brought in. To everyone, Konoha was a deep hole that they could never escape. _Why_ would anyone want to deliberately jump into it?

"Is that really the first thing you think of, Kiba?"

A calmer boy in the same class as Naruto and Kiba said. His name was Sai, and he was infamous for his blunt comments. He said either exactly what everyone wanted to say, but couldn't, or he said something that no one wanted to say. Either way, his strange behavior had earned him numerous beatings from his schoolmates. Despite having excellent skills in martial arts in general, he never fought back. Instead, he'd just put on the fakest smile he could, which was almost worse than fighting back for most.

"If she ain't hot, I've got nothin' to do with her."

Kiba replied with a sly smile. He enjoyed flirting with girls, but never actually got serious. He was quite a generally sweet guy, but he could never turn down the chance to tease. Naruto would meet Santa Clause before he'd see Kiba fall for someone. It was thanks to his father discovering a new dog breed that could help finding oil and gold that he had gained entry to the fifth floor.

Still.

"I wonder who she is…" Naruto leaned his head on his hand while looking sideways at the buffet. Eating in the fifth room was more isolated than any other room. There were thirty students in there, including Naruto.

And they were all guys.  
The "richest" female was on the fourth floor. Of course, this was all by coincidence.

Perhaps this "new student" would care to join him in this assemblage?

Suddenly, a strange urge to leave the room overwhelmed and took over Naruto's will. As if being led, he stood from his chair and left the room without as much as one word.

'_Strange, it feels like someone is out there…'_

"Hey, Naruto! Where ya goin'?!" Kiba yelled after him, but received no answer. He simply shrugged his shoulders and continued eating his Kobe Beef with shitake mushrooms and edamame beans, not really caring where his fellow classmate and good friend was going.

The popular blonde looked down the long hallway for approximately thirty seconds before lowering his eyes and sighing. The eccentric music was so familiar to him, he had completely stopped thinking about it. The message that the principal wanted to give out from this flakey and irritating melody was that: "if someone is annoying, just ignore them." The song lasted two minutes, hacking and repeating itself each time.

"I guess it was just my imagination." As if his words triggered an event, someone abruptly walked passed him at a very quick pace. The persons' hair gently brushed against his cheek at the same moment. He looked up, but failed to see the persons face. All he knew was that she had…

Long…Indigo…Hair.

* * *

"_Naruto, I had no idea that she- "  
Sasuke's attempt to comfort Naruto was literally slapped away. He had tried several times to get him to listen to what he had to say, but Naruto simply did not wish to listen. Nothing could get his best friends' attention anymore.  
His long blonde hair covered his azure blue eyes, but Sasuke did not need to see his face in order to know what his expression was like. _

"_I'll help you get her to like you, so-" _

"_Shut up!" Naruto's head snapped up, revealing the tears pouring down his swollen eyes and cheeks. _

"_She loved you… All along! You just set me up!"_

"_I promise, that's not wha-" _

"_I said shut up!" Naruto shut his eyes tightly and shoved his only friend away from him, putting all his anger and sadness into it. Sasuke fell to the floor, not supporting the fall or even crying out in pain. Before he could get back up and try again, Naruto's eyes went black as the midnight. His expression faded into nothing and his hands fell lifelessly to his sides. His next words determined their future together. _

"_From now on, I'll spend our remaining years together making you pay for what you've done to me."_

"_What are you-" _

"_We're enemies now."_

* * *

The loud noise that a textbook made from falling woke Naruto up. He had fallen asleep during English class and missed half of the class. Just as he was about to ask what he'd neglected to listen to, a soft voice echoed through his ears.

"Pl-please… Think well o-of me." When he looked to the owner of such a gorgeous voice, he was met with the person with the same hair he'd seen outside the lunchroom.

'_Why do I recognize that hair…'  
_

Just this thought passed him, the student raised her head.

Naruto could never forget those eyes, nor could he forget anything else. He needed only one glance to know _exactly _who the new student was. The kanji behind her only made it 200% certain.

"H-Hinata?!"


End file.
